michaels, and bob dole. there is no question none of this could have happened without them coming to the table and understanding how important it was to achieve a result. i also have to emphasize what i believe is the fundamental catalyst for all of this. that is there was a president who was determined to solve this issue. absolutely determined. as we see, not only was he willing, but he ended up sacrificing tremendous political capital, personal political capital in order to do what he felt the country needed at that time. there are a lot of folks who like these kinds of agreements to take place in a climate where there are no politics. it will never happen. it will never happen because politics is the cement that holds the system together, not what divides it. in my opinion, there are three political aspects that have to be looked at in what happened in 1990 and certainly have parallels to what is going on today. there are the politics of the differences in philosophy. there certainly is a liberal perspec